Enemy of the Good

Tom Rachman’s debut novel The Imperfectionist (Dial Press) obviously makes use of his newspaper experience working at the Associated Press as a reporter in Sri Lanka and India, and as an editor at the International Herald Tribune in Paris. Perhaps it’s my inattention, but Rachman’s fictional international, English-language newspaper by which a motley crew of journalists are employed  is never named—or is it?

At any rate, the book follows an F Troop of scribblers, whose personal travails and foibles are played out (mostly in Rome) against the cumulative difficulties with which newspapers do battle in the Internet era and the paper’s own 50-year-old history.

Janet Maslin astutely observes, “Mr. Rachman may write about other subjects with equal grace and ease. But this book, his marvelous first, will always seem like one from the heart,” and continues:

The Imperfectionists

Though slightly off point, I was intrigued by this snippet from a Q&A with Tom Rachman—not the least because it made me aware of an Evelyn Waugh novel:

The Paper

The PaperAll the President’s MenScoop

I can’t think of many novels about the newspaper world, but I did amuse my self trying to assemble a list of movies: Citizen Kane; True Crime; The Pelican Brief; Front Page; Continental Divide; Between The Lines; A Case of Libel; Absence of Malice; State of Play.

Then, while not strictly about print journalism, the following films center around war-zone reporters and photographers, with the first being a minimally disguised portrayal of the world of a gossip columnist, according to Walter Winchell: Sweet Smell of Success; Salvador; The Quiet American; Under Fire.

All these films are worth watching, especially as the culture and calling they portray are—sadly—very endangered species.